Twilight Guardian
by Joeshmo24
Summary: A ghost finds a barely surviving man inside an old Russian cryo pod, he "raises" him despite warnings to never "raise" one who isn't dead. what he finds is a rare survivor from before the golden age, a man out of time with no place to call home. A man who would do anything to redeem his failures, to save even one life. He's just the kind of man the city needs. T for language.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: So this is an Idea I've been kicking around for awhile, decided to post it here. I'm only gonna update it occasionally as my main fic is Spirit of the King right now. for those that read the main fics I'm sorry I didn't get a new chapter for those up, I'm currently experiencing some writer's block, I know what I want to happen, but I'm not sure how to go about it. Fair warning to y'all, this fic is much more gritty and gory than Beyond the skies was even at it's darkest point.**

 **Prolougue: Re-Awakening.**

Too little too late, the only way that he was going to succeed now would be to destroy the whole damn complex. Nothing for it, better start planting the bombs, and quickly. Ivan stood on the verge of victory and the United States was not about to let him have it.

The cold war officially ended in the 80s, but in reality it never truly ended, too many people indoctrinated in the old ways, you can't just take it all away and force them to things the way you want. They fight back, they fight hard, the try again to force their own agenda on the world, on America.

Saun was here to end all of that, normally he was disgusted by the CIA, still was right now if he was honest, but in this case they had the right Idea, they couldn't let Ivan Gorbachev and his Cosmonaught flunkies get one up on the states by using this, whatever it is that they found in space.

Saun moved quickly, a Russian soldier saw him, for but a brief moment before Saun's knife introduced him silently to oblivion, another bomb placed, another objective complete. CIA would bitch about the Russian death tole later, they might bet willing use it as a political crutch after all, but fuck the politicians, he only cared about saving his country from devastation.

This song and dance had gotten Old, Granted he had fortunately stayed one step ahead of Gorbachev all this time, but unfortunately Gorbachev had nearly pulled the wool over his eyes with this one. It would not be easy to end this fight without massive casualties.

"Sir," The soldier near the comm. Console said "I've had three Units fail to check in."

"Ah," Ivan said sadistically "The American is hear to save the day as usual." A smile spread across his face "too little to late." He said dramatically. "Cue up the PA System."

The man pushed a few buttons and turned a nob, then handed the microphone to the general.

"Suan Davis," Ivan began "I know you are here, dropping my evidently useless men like flies as usual. Let's say we settle things once and for all, Mano a Mano, as you American's like to say."

There was no reply of course, The American did not have a communication device that was plugged into the network, but he would know in a few minutes if his bait had worked, he watched silently and waited.

After a minute or so a Russian soldier was sent falling from a catwalk far above them, his body slamming into the ground as inertia slammed him from ave effectively cruching his entire chest cavity together and leaving him dead on the floor with a rib sticking out of his side. Ivan kicked the body aside, stupid useless pawns these soldiers were, nothing compared to the likes of him, or this American, true warriors carved in a time of contention and strife, men out of time and place in the new world.

"You want yourself a duel Ivan?" Saun's familiar voice rang out from above his silhouette barely visible in front of the blindingly bright light that lit the main control room. The man lept down alighting on several metal surfaces along the way and landing nimbly on his feet in the center of the light. "You've got it. Let's end this."

"You never disappoint American!" Ivan said with glee as he pulled off his officer's jacket and cracked his knuckles and his neck. "All of you watch patiently, this fight is between him and I, Gulag style, no interruptions and no aide to either party, we fight until one dies."

Saun yelled and charged at his enemy slashing with his combat knife, the Russian dodged and planted his fist in Saun's abdomen forcing the breath out of him, but as expected he recovered quickly turning and kicking Ivan in the chest and forcing him back. Ivan pulled his own knife, this fight was now fair, one would live and one would die, the victor would decide the fate of the two countries they represented.

Ivan slashed and Saun dodged, Saun stabbed and Ivan parried, the Russian was bigger and stronger that him, but he was nimble and quick on his feet, his punches did not do as much damage, at times they seemed to do nothing at all, he was getting frustrated he needed to end this quickly. He began resorting to kicks as they seemed to at least force the Russian back and make him stop momentarily. He lept in the air and twisted his body his heel slamming down on top of the russian's head and forcing the man's upper body to keel over. His officer's hat pulled from his head and landed on the ground beneath his feet.

The Russian yelped for a moment in pain but retaliated with a a heavy punch to saun's center, throwing him off balance, then a kick that sent him off the ground and several feet back into a wall. As he was getting up a door-like structure closed over him. Trapping him within an odd blue oval shaped device.

Ivan laughed "I couldn't have planned it better myself American." He said gleefully "What better way to go out, frozen to death in the very tundra you tried to conquer."

"What?" Saun said angrily. "What are you talking about."

"surley you noticed that little device that you are trapped in," Ivan said "It's a, how do you say… Prototype, yes I think that's the word, Prototype for a cryo-stasis pod. It doesn't work right, see the body freezes and slows like it's supposed to, but the body is made mostly of water yes, the water becomes ice, and the ice cuts and tears away at muscles and nerves, I am told it's a quite painful death."

"You son of a bitch!" Saun said angrily

"Now, now American, no need for such talk," Ivan replied "Lose with a little grace and dignity won't you?"

Saun started laughing and Ivan's face soured quickly, no longer feeling like the supremevictor, something was wrong, the American should be in fear, not rejoicing.

"What is so funny?" Ivan asked.

"That you thought I was gonna lose," Saun said lifting a detonation device up to Ivan's sight.

Ivan was quick to react "Activate the chamber now!"

Mist began to flow in as the chamber's temperature cooled rapidly.

"Today ends this long Struggle Ivan," Saun said beging to feel the effects of the cold "Once and for all!"

"You will die in there American!" Ivan yelled angrily.

"Not before I Bury you." he said calmly and pressed the button, a series of beeps began to sound off and red lights erupted into existence all around them.

"No!" Ivan said "No, No, No!"

Saun leaned back an relaxed, the pain would come soon, but he would die grateful, he had won out in the end. He exhaled; his only regret was not being able to smoke that sweet victory cigar. Fuck it, he'd light it on hell's flames.

 _400 Years later…_

The ghost flitted around the area, most of the recent guardians had been found in this area, somewhere in old Russia, he wasn't certain why, but it seemed that the traveler's light was densest here. As a result more individuals had the ability to use it as a weapon.

There were some signs of organic structure, he had to be careful, he was farther out than one usually traveled from the city and the area was fairly well controlled by the fallen, they had been capturing ghosts they found more frequently, ghosts no one ever heard from again.

He felt it then, like a tug, a blip on the radar, something was close, something that bore the power of light within itself. He was hopeful that he perhaps had found a new guardian, but he had to e careful, the fallen were crafty, this could be a trap.

He approached an old rusted out Russian bunker and followed the tug closely until he reached a collapsed control room. A few skeletons remained, protected from the elements by the ruble around them. If there had been any others they had become dust. There nearby was a glowing blue oval machine. How this machine had remained active all this time he was not certain, but he sensed an enormous amount of light within.

He hovered around the machine, moving and working, trying to activate the controls. After a few moments he managed to get it to whir and hum. He hoped that that was good, temperatures within the orb were rising, as they did he detected a blip of life, whatever was inside wasn't quite dead yet, he knew he wasn't supposed to "raise" anyone that wasn't dead, but he had been searching for oh so long, and the light within was oh so bright, he couldn't pass this up, it was too good an opportunity.

The machine awakened and withen was a human, a human that was at death's door as far as he could tell, there was extreme structural damage to all major organs and the entire muscle sytem, nerves had been severed and torn asunder, his bran was damaged as though cut up from many small knives, the ghost did not understand, how had this man managed to survive? And for how long?

He burst open, his shell dispersing around a large blue orb of energy with a tiny black sphere in its center "I found you at last." He said contently as he flashed an incredibly bright light. His regenerative powers, the ones that only worked once in a ghost's lifetime, activated, the cellular structure of the man's body reconstructed itself, the muscles regenerated, nerves realigning, brain cells reconstructing, a macabre miracle before the small rotating orb of light.

The man's eyes blinked opened slowly, the moved, taking in his surroundings, he looked around curious. What had happened? Where was he? Memories came flooding back in a flash, a deluge of images and sounds imprinting on his mind, most of his life, but not all, there were gaps, places where things didn't make sense where things weren't right. But he remembered what had just happened, moments ago, the fight with Ivan, the C-4s planted, he was supposed to light that cigar in hell. What had happened? Where was he? Where was Ivan?

"Ivan Gorbachev!" he yelled suddenly startling the ghost which hovered back, "Where is he? If I survived, he may have!"

"I don't understand." The ghost said "Who is Ivan Gorbachev?"

The newly awakened guardian lunged forward grabbing the ghost in his hand and pulling it next to his face, the small A.I. had never felt such desperate fear, something wasn't right, and something was keeping him from teleporting away. Who was this madman? What had he done?

"Ivan Gorbachev!" The man said Insistantly "The Russian KGB Leader, he was here, I fought him, he won, I blew the place to smithereens, I was supposed to die! He was supposed to die with me!" He yelled the words into the ghost's tiny face as though it would help get his point across, it only made the small light feel vulnerable and frightened.

"Please, I don't know what you're talking about." The ghost said "The Russians haven't had a group like that for centuries."

The man seemed to calm down after a few moments he let the ghost go, and the small light born of the traveler floated backwards gratefully trying to escape the maddened re-awakened man.

"What are you?" He asked, this time in a far darker tone "I've never seen anything like you before, a little talking orb floating around on… Who the fuck knows what."

"I am a ghost," The ghost replied "Well, now, I suppose I'm your ghost, though if I am honest, I am currently regretting that descision."

"Ghost?" The man said "Is that what they called you? Are you one of their science projects?"

"I am an extension of the traveler," he said "I am supposed to find those dead who have the genetic ability to use the traveler's light as a weapon to fight the darkness."

The man burst out laughing, it was a nearly genuine laugh with a dark, nearly insane undertone to it a threatening undertone, one that hinted the man did not believe the little light.

Again his hand reached out, and again the ghost was too slow to stop it from gripping him, this time locking itself around him and pulled him closer, right between the man's eyes.

"Who do you think I am?" the man said darkly "Some bright-eyed twelve-year-old sap? Save the bedtime stories for children. And start making sense or I will crush you into powder!"

The ghost didn't doubt the man's words, in fact he was nearly certain he would do as he said. Why couldn't he sense this darkness before, it was there, a darkness surrounded by light, the exact opposite of an awakened. He knew that if he wanted to live he'd best say something, something the man would believe. He didn't believe in light and darkness, so that meant he was old, very old, pre-golden age, but how was that possible? The traveler's light was not used by humans until the golden age had been upon them.

"Well!?" the man demanded.

"Okay, okay," The ghost replied "You were in a cryo stasis chamber, a very old model, it's a miracle you were even alive in there."

"Okay, I remember that," The man said "That stasis chamber was supposed to kill me, And the bombs I had set were supposed to kill Ivan."

"You're not Russian," The ghost said "Are you?"

"Ding, Ding, Ding!" The man said with a false glee "Give the little glowbot a prize, I am of the United States of America, CIA agent Saun Davis. Now then, the Russians had found something in space, mars I believe, I was here to stop them from sending anyone, did I succeed?"

"No," the ghost said plainly, finally something he could work with "The Russians found something on mars alright, your kind called it the traveler."

"The great light being that spawned you?" Saun asked, being a little more genuine this time.

"Y-Yes." The ghost answered hesitantly.

Saun visibly relaxed and allowed his iron grip to loosen, "That makes more sense, the Russians found something," He said "And used it to make little glowbots, A.I. Units that believe that this 'thing' is their god or something, that makes more sense."

"That's not exactly how it happened." The ghost replied.

Before Saun could come up with a snarky response a warbling, roaring sound echoes through the collapsed tunnels they were in.

"What was that?" Saun asked, this time deadly serious.

"Fallen," he said, "They must have tracked me."

"What are fallen?" Saun asked again very serious.

"For now let's just say they're bad news," The ghost said "I suggest we get out of here before they find us, because if they do, they will kill us."

"Acceptable," Saun said "where to? This place isn't exactly what it was when I went into cryo-stasis."

"This way," The ghost said and began floating down a tunnel "Follow me."

"Follow the little orb A.I. that believes in fairy tales," Saun said "The things I do for my country."

Saun did follow however and the little glowing orb led him through a labyrinth of tunnels that he would never have found his way out of on his own. Maybe he should be a little easier on him.

When they did reach the surface he stopped, the place looked decadent, destroyed, a piece of land right out of those post apocalyptic video games his nephew liked so much.

"What happened here?" he asked, his voice wavering, the reality of the situation he found himself in was finally making its way past all his mental defenses and into his heart. "Where are we?"

"Old Russia," The ghost said answering his last question first, "as to what happened, the darknees happened."

"What is this darkness?" Saun asked

"We… We don't really know," the ghost said "I suppose that's why we call it the darkness."

"Okay," Saun said "Now that, that I believe."

"Quickly," The ghost said "There's an old cosmodrome nearby, if we're lucky we may find a ship there, one the fallen haven't picked clean."

"Ship?" he asked "This place was landlocked."

"It still is," The ghost said "We're going to find a space ship."

"This… Traveler," Saun said "Gave them the technology to do all that?"

"Yes," The ghost said "Not just the Russians, but all of mankind. Things will make more sense when we get to the city."

"The city?" Saun asked again, followed by another of those warbling roars. "Never mind, let's go."

"Okay, this is probably going to freak you out a bit." The ghost said "but here goes nothing."

The ghost disappeared in a flash of light and his eyes burned momentarily before images appeared in them, as though he was looking through a helmet feed or a heads up display.

"What the fuck!?" Saun yelled angrily, rubbing his eyes "What did you do?"

"I integrated with your neural network," The ghost's voice rang inside the confines of his own mind, a sensation that felt as though he shared his body with another soul, it felt wrong, unnatural."

"Fuck!" he said "Get out of my head!"

"I will," The ghost said "When we find a ship."

"Damn it!" Saun yelled.

A bolt of blue lighting shot out from beneath the ground and slammed into something, a shield? Some hard light… something that surrounded him like a cacoon.

"The fallen have found us!" The ghost said worriedly

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa," Saun said "What the fuck! What the fuck okay!"

"Hard light shield," Ghost said "I can project one around you, but only when I'm bonded to you like this."

"Okay!" Saun said, still not grasping everything "Keep doing that then."

A moment later a humanoid shape emerged from the hole in the ground that they had walked out from, a tuft of hair ran above its head and it wore an odd helmet, two cylinder shapes protruded above its shoulders.

"A Fallen dreg!" Ghost said

"Can I kill it with a knife?" Saun asked.

"Yes," The ghose said "But I don't see why-"

Saun rushed the humanoid and punched it in the face before it could attack again, knocking it back, then he pulled it's head up and slit it's throat with his combat knife, something else the chamber had kept in one piece. The dreg screamed and went limp bleeding blue blood all over the ground. A pistol shaped weapon fell from its hand.

Saun picked up the pistol, he aimed it and pulled the trigger a few times, arcs of blue energy spat out like bullets. Seemingly satisfied with it he turned towards the large rusted wall in the distance.

"So, The cosmodrome is that way right?" he asked

"Yes." The ghost said "We should hurry, Dregs rarely travel alone."

"Alright then, onward ho!"

 **Author's note: I was thinking of making this longer, but I kind of want to draw some of the arcs out a bit because I want this to eventually run parralell to the game releases for destiny itself. So I'll be breaking it up into pieces, I'm gonna go play wakfu and work on Spirit of the king for awhile, PEACE!**


	2. Chapter2: Of Enemies and Flying Ships

**Hollydoor: I had every intention of updating before now, but I had a few bumbs in the road to go over, such as moving into my new apartment…**

 **Author's Note: My internet went out for awhile… You don't know what you got til it's gone my friends, and damn! The internet is a good thing. I actually never realized how much I depend on it for stuff, I was all "I got games that don't need internet, I'm good" But I cant read fanfiction or post any new chapters or read my webcomics or reply to PMs etc. etc. also communication through web based telephone services are important too…**

 **Chapter 2: of fallen foes and flying ships**

This was no fun voyage of adventure, no this was a heart pounding journey through a wasteland filled with rusted out old vehicles while being chased by some alien force of unknown origin or power while desperately taking potshots every chance he got in order to keep them at bay another minute or two so he could figure out his next piece of cover.

"You know you're not really hitting them right?" Ghost said.

"Hitting them isn't the point." He said he was still getting used to the weird HUD thing in his eyeballs, but at least he knew how much ammo he had at any given point. This gun seemed to recharge based on lighting like energy, but he had managed to grab another few from those fallen dreg things anyway. Like it or not, he was going to have to start hitting them if he wanted to get out of here alive.

He popped his head out, pointed, and shot, he hit the taller Alien with a cape only to see blue energy burst to life around him, stopping the bolt cold in the middle of the air.

"Oh, that shit's just not fair!" Saun yelled angrily before taking cover behind an old rusted out van. "Hey ghost can you answer a question?"

"I can try."

"If humanity had all this super space tech," Saun asked "Why were we still driving cars?"

"I do not know the answer to that," the ghost said "However I can tell you that the fallen are closing in."

"Shit!" Saun leaned over the car and fired off a few rounds, he didn't know who these fallen were exactly so he decided to ask. "Exactly what are these 'Fallen'?"

"The fallen are a race of insectoids," The ghost replied "They are scavengers, they follow the darkness claiming all it does not destroy as their own, they have claimed all the planets of the sol system as theirs, though I doubt they would set foot on Mars as it is now."

"Why's that?" Saun asked genuinely curious.

"Because the Cabal control mars." The ghost answered.

Saun used the fallen's momentary confusion to run past several more cars, he could see the wall of the cosmodrome was not far now, he just had to make it over a break in the overpass he was running on and he would have a straight shot towards it. As he began mentally measuring the distance and the force he would need to exert in his legs he heard a loud sound in his ears. And it looked as though a watery film wavered in front of him. He immediately dropped to the ground and rolled behind a minivan still in one piece on the highway.

"What was that!?" he yelled to no one in particular.

"That was the hard light shield failing." The ghost replied "I can recharge it, but I will need a few moments of uninterrupted time to do so."

"Translation: don't get shot." Saun said

"Exactly." The ghost replied.

"Not as easy as you make it sound sparky," Saun replied.

"Sparky?" the ghost asked "Are you referring to me?"

"Yes," Saun said "That is your name now, sparky."

"Ghosts don't have names," the ghost replied "We are simply called 'Ghost."

"Yeah that's not gonna work for me." Saun said rather bluntly "So you're sparky now."

"I suppose I can respond to that designation." The ghost said, it sounded almost… offended, were these A.I. units capable of emotion? If so he would have to take that into greater consideration later, once he was done not dying that is.

"Shield's up." The ghost replied "However that last failure was caused by a wire rifle it would be best to take out the wielder of the wire rifle before continuing."

Saun sighed, he was trying to avoid killing any of these things until he got to the city and got a better read on the political situation, the last thin he need was to accidentally start a war because of tense political ties between nations, he had seen the terror war brought and would prefer to avoid bringing it upon anyone. The ghost said that they were scavengers, that they were humanity's enemies, but he would feel a whole lot safer hearing that from a human leader. Nonetheless if he didn't kill them now, they would kill him, and he wasn;t going to die before finding out what this new world held.

Saun, as the human called itself, took a deep breath inward, then he exhaled slowly, his eyes went blank, there was no discernible emotion in them, the Ghost could fee the light of the man waning, slowly retreating inward and circling the darkness becoming something calm and neutral.

The man stood, his chest and head above the car and pointed the pistol towards the fallen, one, two, three, four, five bolts unleashed, each hitting it's target and downing it in one shot, a shot to the head specifically. Only the captain was still standing, and only because of his hard light shield. The fallen leader looked long and hard at Saun, apparently deciding that this battle was not one worth fighting he grunted some indiscernible fallen words and turned, walking away. Saun relaxed, the light began to filter outward again from inside, and emotion returned to his eyes.

"Well, That takes care of that I guess." He said "Though I am curious… why do their heads pop off?"

"I'm not certain," the ghost said "We have had few opportunities to study their physiology, our atmosphere is toxic to them, so even after taking off the armor we cannot determine what a healthy functioning Fallen body looks like, the air poisons the corpse."

"I see." Saun said "That is unfortunate."

The two walked towards the wall, Saun lept over the ravine-like break in the overpass and landed expertly on the other side. He saw something flitting about somewhere in the wilderness to the left of him, but chose to ignore it, it wasn;t important, likely just a cricket flitting around, looking for a place to settle.

He walked up to the wall, there was a stair case to the side of the main road, he climbed it, when he reached the landing where the stairs changed direction he almost fell because a portion of the rusted out metal collapsed under his weight. Other than a dissatisfied grunt he made no comment about the situation.

Once inside the wall it became nearly pitch black, Saun had had to work his way through such things before, he knew how to navigate by sound and smell and touch if he had to. Fortunately it seemed that this was not necessary. The ghost pulled itself from inside his head, or at least it partially did so, the HUD images were still there in his eyes, but the ghost seemed to be outside his head completely and was casting light forward like a very powerful flashlight, interesting.

The duo came to a point where the path opened up, the wall itself was large of course but they couldn't see how large, the light cast by the ghost was certainly not enough in order to illuminate this large area.

"I'll find us some light," The ghost said, puling himself completely from Saun, the HUD disappearing and causing him a short wave of nausea.

"You've got to stop doing that." Saun said "It hurts."

"I apologize," the ghost replied "Perhaps the cryo stasis has something to do with it, I have seen many ghosts and guardians perform this regularly, they do not seem to be disoriented or in pain as a result, perhaps their bodies become accustomed to it after awhile."

"Yeah, acquired taste, no thanks." Saun replied

"We have little choice at the moment." The ghost said, then changing the subject back to getting light he continued "I'm going to have a few centuries of rust and atrophy working against me, but I think I can make it work."

The ghost proceeded to fly off into the distance somewhere, constantly visible as a sphere of light surrounded it. "Found it." The ghost's voice echoed through the chamber, as it returned to Saun's position. Almost immediately a loud shrieking roar could be heard as the lights began turning on and illuminating the area. Several of those fallen creatures were on a catwalk across a large pit from him, several small red floating devices moved in behind them.

"Don't worry, they don't have wire rifles, they can't hit us from here." The ghost said confidently.

Saun had decided some time ago that wire rifles must be what these creatures used as sniper rifles, but for whatever reason the ghost referred to them only as wire rifles.

"Nonetheless we should move," Saun said "We need that ship I presume, and I image the only way to get from here to there is through them yes."

The ghost was quiet a moment then it's blue eye brightened "Yes, it would appear so."

"Great," saun said in an irritated tone "lets get going then."

Once again the ghost disappeared and once again Saun felt a wave of nausea as the HUD reappeared in his eyesight. He chose to ignore it this time, turning behind him and moving towards the now opened grate.

"There," the ghost said "A rifle." Saun looked towards an old war crate and found it, it was clearly of Russian make, even after centuries of development he could tell a russian rifle from any other, looked like some newfangled kalishnikov rifle. Something based on the old AK-47 models for sure. He hefted the gun, testing it's weight, and looked down the sights, it seemed to be the only thing in this whole place that wasn't and old rusted out piece of metal. Though he saw no ammunition for it anywhere, pulling the magazine out he say that it had a full magazine in it already, though the bullets seemed odd, like they weren't entirely there.

"Doesn't do us much good without ammo," saun said frowning.

"I can synthesize ammunition for it," the ghost said "when it runs out of ammo, I can bend the traveler's light into bullets, hard light, like your shield, only capable of causing harm instead of preventing it."

"Okay," Saun said "I'm going to accept that explaination and let you just do your thing despite having no Idea what you are talking about."

"I was referring to-" the ghost started

Saun pu his hand up "Don't," he said "What I got out of it was essentially unlimited ammunition, and that's all I need to know."

"It isn't unlimited." The ghost said "I do require materials to make it, however these materials can be generated by organic beings."

"Which means what ecactly?"

Well, you may find the materials I need on fallen corpses after you kill them."

Saun stopped at that, was this thing serious? Aliens were attacking earth, apparently after much more powerful aliens nearly destroyed it, he was "chosen" to help protect this "city" which was supposedly the last safe place on earth. He was holding a gun that had constantly regenerating ammunition which he could pick up from dead bodies… This was not reality, this was the video game based fever dream of a college kid.

The ghost was quite curious when Saun walked over to a metal bulkhead in the wall and grasped it firmly. He was unsure what the human was looking for here. The human's head pulled backwards, and then rushed forwards, slamming into the bulkhead with such force that the hard light shield instantly failed, he pulled back again slamming his head into the bulkhead a second time, this time somewhat softer, but the man seemed to get what he wanted out of it, despite a now bleeding wound on his forehead.

"This is real…" he said almost weakly reaching up to feel the blood on his forehead "This is real… How can this be real? This is some fantasy, I'm dreaming, this can't be real, and yet… and yet it is…"

The ghost felt sorry for the man, truly he did, he must feel as though everything was surreal and fantastical, he was asleep for over five hundred years after all. But regardless, insectoid cutthroats closed in on them from the front and he could not afford to allow his guardian to die.

"Guardian," The ghost said "We can worry about that later, right now you need to live."

"Live…" Saun said " Live… Yes, I should try to get to this city, maybe there I can find some answers." Saun slowly came back to himself, the reality of this situation was harsh, far harsher than he had realized before, he would have to push it back, it was hard pushing it all back, but he must, in order to survive, at least for today.

"Which way to a ship?" he asked the ghost.

"I sense one not far," The ghost replied, glad to be of use again "but we have to get through the wall and over some open terrain."

"Damn, that last part will be difficult." Saun replied. "Wall part first then."

He ran forward rushing over a catwalk before the ghost stopped him again. "There's a fallen weapon's cache, we should see if we can scavenge anything."

Saun at first dismissed the idea as unnecessary, but decided he might as well, who knows, maybe he could get his hands on one of those wore rifles so he could take the bastards out from a distance. No suck luck, but the shotgun inside was certainly worth… something, he wasn't certain how much close quarters combat he would have to endure. There were several little blue cubes, a lot of them actually, when he touched one, they all seemed to disappear into it as though being stored.

"What is this stuff?" Saun asked

"We call it glimmer," The ghost answered "In short, it's programmable matter."

"Holy shit!" Saun exclaimed "The U.S. government was working on something just like this! If Russia got it first, that would explain a lot, the Russians would have become the new world super power, the United States would be last year's model for sure."

"Glimmer was made by the traveler," the ghost said " I highly doubt he kept it only for the Russians. The traveler shared his power with all humanity."

"So you say," Saun replied "Let's just move on." He continued placing the small cube into his pocket.

Ahead was a pass, but there were trip mines, the lasers coming out of them were cleverly hidden, you couldn't see them unless you were right on top of them, even with the ghost's HUD within his vision. He carefully approached the first one.

"How do we disarm them?" Saun asked.

"Most guardians just shoot them." The ghost replied.

"Are they crazy!" Saun answered "we don't want them to explode!"

"They only explode if their sensor goes off," the ghost said "a bullet can detach the sensor unit from the rest of the unit fairly effectively, you just have to aim at it's center."

"Okay…" Saun said not entirely convinced, though he supposed he should probably trust the future light bulb A.I. for now. he raised the rifle and shot at the mine, hitting the center, there was a small bang and the laser disappeared, the mine fizzling out uselessly. Saun proceeded to disable several more mines in this manner before another dreg walked around the corner quickly, likely alerted to his presence through the sound that the mines made when deactivated.

The creature shrieked in surprise before being unceremoniously killed via a bullet through the throat. It's friends did not take this well, little floating red things, as far as Saun could tell they were floating robots. They turned and floated upward momentarily before opening fire, thankfully the bots from these machines seemed somewhat less powerful that the regular bolts and he was able to dispatch them without losing the shield or being forced to take cover.

"Icould get used to this shield thing." He said with smirk.

Heading down and into a large hall looking area he found a large number of the enemy gathered there, only a few of those dregs, then there were larger ones with four arms holding rifles or swords and a very large one with a more ornate helmet who had some kind of rifle. Saun hid, taking cover behind a bulkhead before the group saw him, he had also observed a few of those floating robots as well.

"So what are the bigger ones with rifles and swords?" Saun asked quietly

"We call them Vandals," the ghost said "The flying robots are called shanks, and the big one with the shrapnel gun is a captain, they have swords sometimes too, and energy shields."

"Great, so I need to pick off the smaller ones first then." Saun said, he rolled to his side and did exactly that quickly taking out the shanks before disappearing behind the bulkhead again. The fallen were alert now, but unaware of his location, they were searching while forming some kind of formation.

Saun peeked his head out low, almost to the ground, a tactic he had learned a long time ago, no one is expecting you to appear below their eyeline. He let loose a few more shots taking out the three dregs to the captain's left and disappeared again. The fallen seemed to still be unaware of his location, but the next one would definitely give him away.

He poked his head out higher this time, over the bulkhead, he took aim and fired again shooting the vandals through the head and taking out the captian's shield before he disappeared in a flash of blue light.

"What?" Saun said in frustration "They have shields _and_ they can teleport!? That is _not_ fair!"

"I should have mentioned that." The ghost said

"Ya think?" Saun said as reply before the captain reappeared, this time much closer to him, bearing down on his location, Saun pulled out his recently acquired shotguns and pulled the trigger, the captain's shield, which had apparently regenerated via the same rules his own shield worked, was visibly broken leaving the fallen leader vulnerable. As the captain approached set on slamming Saun with the butt of his shrapnel gun Saun shoved the shotgun under his head.

"Eat this!" he said angrily as he pulled the trigger, buckshot blasted through the fallen's helemet tearing his head clean off, but rather than blood or slimey bug innards like Saun was expecting there was just a hiss and what appeared to be some kind of steam, as the captain's body fell, lifelessly to the ground.

"Alright," Saun said "How far to this 'open terrain' you mentioned?"

"Just through there," the gost sain using an arrow in the HUD to indicate the location of a door.

"Hmm…" Saun was thoughtful, as he walked through the door, and the tunnel beyond, he reached the openeding stealthily killing two more vandals before an skull shattering boom was heard overhead. "What is that!?" saun yelled.

"A fallen ketch!" the ghost sounded audibly concerned over this "I've never seen them so close to the surface!"

"Yeah, but what is it!?"

"A battleship!"

"WHAT!" Saun said "That can't possibly be for me."

"Not likely," the ghost said "but it does present a problem."

"Fuck it man, we're running!" Saun said as he high tailed it across the open terrain with a few buildings sticking out here and there, he used the forst for cover for the first part of the journeym then sprinted until he entered what appeared to be a large hanger of some sort.

"Perfect," the ghost said "The ship is just up ahead." Pulling itself from his head again he led the way into a room full of fallen.

"Hang on!" the ghost said disappearing into the ship.

"Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit!" Saun yelled as he rolled into cover barely dodging a flurry of large slow moving bolts that seemed to track his movements. "What are you doing!"

"Bringing you up!" the ghost said in way of answer as an incredibly large fallen crawled out of the wall carrying some hugmungous version of the Captain's shrapnel gun.

"What is that!?" Saun yelled as he was instantly teleported into the co-pilot's seat.

"An Archon," the ghost answered "You don't want to fight that, trust me."

"I don't need you tell me!" Saun said and straps were automatically buckled around him.

"Hold on tight!" the ghost said as the ship was lifted into the air and blasted forward at insane speeds. "Next stop, the City!"

 **Author's note: Dragon age is very addicting, and hard to put down. I am crashing at my brother's place while I figure out how to pay off what remains of my debt to my old apartment complex so I can move into a new one… not fun, especially since I have to bus to work and I am** _ **very far**_ **from work. I hope to get a chapter of Spirit of the king up tonight, but no promises.**


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